A fast-evolving app ecosystem

Already a very popular platform for web, Blackberry and Android mobile development, you’ll want to bring all your apps to Ubuntu.

A great app will use the unique features in Ubuntu to create a fresh, uncluttered, purposeful and fast experience. Make one app binary for all form factors – web or native. You have it all at your fingertips when you run Ubuntu on your workstation.

We love the web

Web apps are first class citizens on Ubuntu, with APIs that provide deep integration into the system. HTML5 apps written for other platforms can be adapted to Ubuntu with ease, and we’re targeting standard cross-platform web app development frameworks like PhoneGap to make Ubuntu “Just Work” for those apps.

Our unique web app system lets you adapt any web property for installation as an app on Ubuntu, running independently of the browser, with its own icon and access to system services. Which means that all the big names will be available to Ubuntu phone and tablet users at launch.

We also go native

For rich applications with gorgeous movement and transitions and graphics-heavy games, Ubuntu provides an amazing native developer toolset. QML provides a slick, easy development environment for native apps with engines in C or C++ and JavaScript for UI glue where performance isn’t critical. We also give you full native OpenGL, which the top games companies are using to make incredible games. That’s why big name developers like EA, Valve Software and Unity Technologies already target Ubuntu.

One app on Ubuntu for all form factors

Perhaps the most exciting thing about writing native apps for Ubuntu is the opportunity to write and build a single app with responsive interfaces that allow it to run on any Ubuntu device. In other words, you can use the Ubuntu SDK to build your app and, with some care and attention, make it available to users of Ubuntu PCs, phones and tablets – all in a single upload to the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Entertain us

Ubuntu integrates online content across all our devices. Take advantage of Canonical’s service framework and get your content in front of millions of users.

Start creating your app now

If you are writing apps for Ubuntu today, it’s time to go mobile. Download the Preview SDK and get started today.